This invention pertains to inkjet printing on a pretreated fabric with pigmented inkjet inks, and to a pretreatment solution for the fabric that allows high quality printing thereon. It further pertains to inkjet printing on a pretreated fabric using a white pigmented ink in combination with colored inks to produce enhanced colored images. The colored ink is printed on the white ink within 60 minutes of the printing of the white ink.
Digital printing methods such as inkjet printing are becoming increasingly important for the printing of textiles and offer a number of potential benefits over conventional printing methods such as screen printing. Digital printing eliminates the set up expense associated with screen preparation and can potentially enable cost effective short run production. Inkjet printing furthermore allows visual effects such as tonal gradients and infinite pattern repeat sizes that cannot be practically achieved with a screen printing process.
US2004/0252173 describes a digital printing process that utilizes a white ink under a printed image, but the white ink underprinted portion is an white masking layer for the colored ink. US2006/0162586 describes screen printing a underbase which is a white opaque image prior to printing the digitally printed color image. WO2004/043702 describes printing a white underlayer, but suggests drying of the white ink and that the inks are non aqueous. US2005/0146544 a white ink composition with polymerizable components, requires UV light to cure the ink, and is described for use on transparent media.
While digital printing provides a breadth of available printing conditions for almost any fabric, there is often a need for achieving a higher color on the fabric especially colored textiles. It is an object of this invention to enable higher color, high quality inkjet printing of fabrics, such as cotton and cotton blends, with colored inkjet inks.